Precious People
by Biddybam
Summary: Kami decides that after a saddening display with an 8 year old Naruto, he needs to understand friendship, to have someone to be there for him. So she decides to resurrect Minato and Kushina and send them to be with Naruto. Naruto/Minato/Kushina centric.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

The Shinigami was not a pleasant deity. He was regarded by some as the single most evil, cruel, and twisted being that ever lived. He took pleasure in torturing people's souls in the afterlife and in the living world. His teeth were stained from the blood of the many creatures he feasted on. That didn't even cover his horrid appearance, a dead purple complexion with white hair and two red pointed horns.

As you can tell, not a nice guy

So you can imagine his response when Kami came into his office, her ever present smile plastered across her beautiful (to any mortal, the Shinigami had forgotten what true beauty was long ago) face, asking for a favor

* * *

><p>"No"<p>

Kami's smile turned to a frown at the Shinigami's response.

"Please?", she asked, hope still in her voice.

The Shinigami just picked his head up and looked at her. Kami's frown deepened.

"Why not?" The Shinigami sighed a bit as he placed his _Torture Daily! _magazine down on the table in front of him. He was just getting onto the article about how to best drive Sharingan users insane by degrading their eyesight and such.

"By using the Shiki Fuujin, he effectively offered his soul to me for all of eternity. If I just start letting these sacrifices go, that going to kill my credibility as the death god! I can't afford to lose anymore, especially since Amaterasu's party". Both of them involuntarily shuddered at the memory, best not to think about it, they both echoed each other's thoughts.

"How about I buy his soul from you then?" she quickly questioned.

The Shinigami eyed her wearily. "What could you possibly have that would be worth a soul under my domain?" he asked. When Kami pulled out a couple bundles of mochi, he mentally cursed her cleverness. It was impossible to get good, handmade mochi in the afterlife these days, and it was the one treat that the Shinigami (secretly) indulged in. Kami grinned internally when saw the Shinigami's face contort a bit from the amount of internal cursing going on, because she knew that she had him now. She felt a little bead of sweat form on her head when she realized she had just successfully bribed the death god with sweets.

"Ah, ah ah! Not yet!" she said when the Shinigami groped for the bundles of sweets in her hand. "I want his wife's soul too".

At this, the Shinigami's eyes narrowed again, darting between Kami and the mochi in here hands. After a few seconds, he let out a defeated sigh and snapped his fingers. Two jars suddenly appeared on his desk filled with some kind of ethereal substance that Kami easily identified as souls. He quickly traded the jars for the mochi with Kami and started digging in to them. Kami let out a illustrious, beautiful laugh, before disappearing in a shower of golden dust and sparks, illuminating the whole office of the Shinigami, leaving a small sakura flower protruding from under the floorboards where she had last stood.

"Showoff", the Shinigami grumbled under his breath, not that he cared much anymore, he had his mochi after all.

* * *

><p>Kami gazed down upon the huge world that was sprawled beneath her view point. She loved all her children in the world, and that would never change, but she couldn't help but be upset and disappointed occasionally at them. For example, the reason why she had visited the Shinigami, the small child known as Naruto.<p>

In truth, he was known by more people as simply the Kyuubi brat than Naruto. He was not attacked or mobbed by the people, but something almost as horrid. He was rejected, ignored, forgotten, but worst, he was alone. His parents were dead, he had no friends, the parents of children his age directed them away from him. The Sandiame Hokage of Konoha cared for the boy as much as he could, but he was the Hokage, and could not be around the boy often, only occasionally visit him and pay for his rent and food. Her decision to go to the Shinigami had come after she had witnessed, much to her joy at first, the boy had managed to find some children to play with him at the playground. He joy soon disappeared and was replaced by pity as she watched the children's parents intervened and took the kids away from Naruto. She realized at this point, she needed to help young Naruto, to give him people to be a friend to him, or even more.

She picked up the two jars before her, unscrewing both and watching as the souls drifted out. Her hands lit up in a bright gold light as she made their new bodies. She planned to send them to where they had died, the same age as young Naruto. She knew they would have to be careful not to draw attention to theirselfs, but knew they would be able to handle it. Once the bodies were created and the souls successfully integrated, they both disappeared in a bright gold flash, reappearing on earth where their final resting place had been.

"Be there for Naruto..."

**AN: This is my first attempt at any serious fanfiction. The idea occurred to me last night and I just wrote it up this morning. You can expect the next chapter in a few days, and expect it to be a lot longer.**


	2. Chapter 1

**AN: I don't have a beta, please feel free to point out any mistakes in reviews or PMs, as I am horrible at catching them myself.**

**Chapter 1**

Minato groaned as he slowly gained consciousness, which was weird because like most highly trained shinobi, he normally became completely aware after a few seconds. His body felt completely drained, and he didn't know where he was. He could feel the cool grass underneath his body and the sun beating down on his face. He came to the groggy conclusion that he either was knocked out, or somehow fell asleep outside. He also started to notice that something about his clothes... didn't feel right. It took him a second before he realized he was missing the familiar weight of his Jounin vest pressing down, nor was his familiar jacket present either.

At this point, Minato managed to squint his eyes open just a bit, before snapping them back shut before the sun burned out his eyes. He groaned again, but then stilled. That...that groan! That could not of been his! It was too high pitched, like a child's! Experimentally he tried to sit up, much to his bodies protest. Once he had managed a sitting position, he slowly opened his eyes, getting them to adjust to the light. He realized that he was in a small grass field surrounded by trees on all sides. He glanced over to what looked like a small ceremonial offering pillow, surrounded by candle holders. Something was nagging at the back of his head, damnit! Why couldn't he remember what had happened before he had been knocked out!

_Might as well try to pick myself up_, Minato thought silently to himself. With a little effort, Minato pushed himself up onto his feet before being overcome with a strong sense of vertigo and promptly falling forward. He quickly put his hands out to catch himself before face planting in the grass, but what he saw made his brain shut down for a few moments.

_My hands...these aren't my hands. _Minato looked in confusion at his hands. They were small, smooth, vacant of all the callus he had collected in his career as a ninja. They were the hands of a **Child!** In his shock, he started to notice that he wasn't even wearing his normal clothes that he put on under his jacket. _This was the jacket I wore as a genin. _He noticed with even more shock. He had lost it after his team ran in with a pyromaniac missing-nin from Konoha. That had been over 12 years ago!

After having his mind subsequently blown twice in such a small amount of time. He calmed himself and tried to think about other things. He decided to think about his son about to be born tomorr-.

Minato's eyes widened as he suddenly recalled what had happened before he had passed out. Everything came rushing back to him, his son's birth, Uchiha Madara and their subsequent fight, the unsealing of the Kyuubi and its unleashing to attack Konoha, his attempt to seal the Kyuubi away in his newborn son, his... death? At this, confusion settled back into Minato. The Shiki Fuujin should of killed him and the Shinigami have taken his soul, but looking around, he knew this as the area that he had just battled in. _Speaking of which, didn't I get stabbed through the chest with a giant claw?_ Minato looked underneath his shirt quickly and didn't see a single blemish, but then again, that definitely the chest of a young, untrained child and not one of a twenty-five year old shinobi. He wondered what the hell was going on._ Didn't Kushina get stabbed too?_

_Kushina! Naruto!_ He suddenly realized that neither of them were to be seen. Panic started to well in his chest. Forcing himself up yet again, he managed to maintain his balance this time. Glancing around, he noticed a figure sprawled across the ground, face down in the grass, but the red hair gave away immediately who it was. Minato would recognize that red hair anywhere. Rushing over to her side (more like almost tripping with every step he took, but for dignity's sake, we will say he was rushing), he carefully rolled her over to her back so that she was face up.

The first thing he noticed was that her face was very round. It was definitely Kushina, but she hadn't looked like that since they were children. He noticed that her body was also smaller, about the size it had been when he had first met her. More or less, it looked like she had regressed in age to about the age she had been in the ninja academy. Minato absently remarked in his mind that the same thing must of happened to him. After performing a basic medical diagnostics on both himself and his wife, he realized both of them were perfectly healthy, which was extremely strange considering the battle they had both been in. Stranger yet, they both appeared to be young child, somewhere between the ages of six to ten by his estimate. He found that all his chakra was nearly depleted but was relieved to find that it seemed to be replenishing, abet at a much slower rate. He guessed it made sense, considering he had just performed the Shiki Fuujin, it was incredibly draining in and of itself to call the death god before you.

Suddenly, Kushina started to stir from her sleep. Minato quickly rushed over to her and put his head over hers, wanting to make sure she was still fine and hadn't missed anything in the diagnostics. Slowly opening her eyes, she peered at his face with slight confusion for a few seconds.

"Kawaii!" Minato felt a sweatdrop form on his forehead.

* * *

><p>Minato rested with Kushina for a few minutes in silence, letting her soak in what he had figured out so far and what his theories were. He had come up with a few plausible ones so far. One, they were both in heaven. This is personally the one that Minato preferred, but knew it was extremely unlikely as his soul should of been forfeit to the Shinigami, and he was pretty sure he wouldn't just let him waltz into heaven. Two, they were in an extremely powerful genjustu cast by either the Kyuubi or Uchiha Madara. Minato likewise disregarded this theory as well, he was a kage after all, he would be surprised if he couldn't at the very least sense a genjustu powerful enough that he couldn't dispel it, those took a lot of chakra and were fairly easy to sense by anyone with competent chakra detection skills. Three, the amount of chakra in the sealing coupled with the death god's and Kyuubi's had somehow sent them careening through time and sent them back to when they were kids. Minato felt as stupid as it sounded, it actually made the most sense out of all the theories they had. A trip to the village should be able to prove or disprove it also.<p>

Kushina was being uncharacteristically quiet, so Minato was about to speak up when she opened her mouth and said that they needed to collect more information first. Minato gave her a funny look for a moment, normally it was he that urged taking things slowly.

"What? I don't always rush into the situation headfirst, 'ttebane", she said with a slight blush. Minato just gave her a look that screamed, _you're joking me right_?

* * *

><p>Kotetsu sighed dejectedly. He and his buddy Izumo had just been "promoted" to gate duty at the main gate. It had happened after a minor fiasco involving an attempt by Izumo to act like some of the older Jounin and come through the window into the Hokage's office instead of using the door. The attempt had failed miserably, as Izumo had tripped on the windowsill and crashed head first into the mountains of finished paperwork on the Sandiame's desk. You can imagine he wasn't happy. Sarutobi had promptly given both of them the "privilege" of "ensuing the safety of the village" by checking paperwork and recording everyone that went in and out. Kotetsu guessed it wasn't that bad, and at least he didn't have to worry about possibly dying every day of his life. <em>Yeah, this isn't that bad at all<em>, he thought as he leaned back in his chair.

Kotetsu's chair promptly gave out from underneath him and he hit the ground with a dull thud. His friend immediately erupted in laughter at his predicament, only to be partially silenced to a few muffled snickers at Kotetsu's glare. It was about now they both noticed a rather large group of people and horse-drawn carts were entering the village proper. They both sighed, got up, and proceeded in proper protocol.

"Name, purpose in visiting Konohagakure no sato, registration", Kotetsu asked in a rather monotone voice to a middle-aged man who looked to be leading the caravan.

The leader went ahead and gave all the necessary information. Neither of them noticed the two children holding onto the bottom of the carts as they pulled into the village.

* * *

><p>Minato and Kushina both dusted themselves off in an alley near the center of Konoha. Or, in Kushina's case, viciously scrubbed her hair in water from a busted pipe. Riding on the bottom of a horse-drawn cart was not a good idea if you had long hair.<p>

"Remind me to punch you later for this", she muttered in a small voice trying to rid her hair of horse waste. Minato visibly blanched at the prospect of being hit by a pissed off Kushina, her punches **hurt**. He felt lucky she had still retained her tomboyish attitude somewhat over the years he knew her, she would probably only send him to the hospital for a day or two.

After she had thoroughly cleaned her hair, she took a dramatic stance. "Time to commence Operation Find Out Where The Hell We Are!" she yelled slightly louder than necessary, electing a sigh from Minato.

Minato took the lead, looking up at the Konoha Mountain, he wasn't too surprised to find a fourth head added since the last time he looked at it. He snorted somewhat at how they portrayed his face, that barely looked anything like him! Well, they were definitively not in the past. _Maybe the future?_ Minato questioned in his mind.

"Come on, let's go check out our house" Kushina suggested, sensing Minato's bad mood. Minato gave a shrug, which Kushina interpreted as a yes, and they both started walking through the village. While they were walking, both Minato and Kushina couldn't help but noticed how different the village looked, but also how much of it looked the same. They recognized the area they were in as the north-eastern quadrant of the village, mainly a residential and small time commercial area. They had only recognized a few stores, many new ones replacing the old. The housing was all the same for the most part, except for a new area that Minato vaguely recognized as to where the Kyuubi was first summoned into the village, and then forced out.

"Get down!" Kushina urgently whispered in his ear as they quickly ducked into an alleyway. Minato sent a questioning stare in Kushina direction that she ignored for about 30 seconds before answering. "I recognized a hidden ANBU's chakra up ahead as Kakashi. Remember how we discussed no one can know about us coming back yet? We don't know how long we've been gone and I'm pretty sure everyone is just going to assume we are spies. I mean, who's going to believe, 'Hey, me and Minato who was supposed to die actually turned into children and were teleported through time or whatever, please don't kill us'.

Minato grimaced slightly in agreement. They were going to have to figure out exactly where they were and gather some proof before thinking of revealing themselves. It felt almost silly to be semi-spying on the village you are the kage of but hey, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Minato noticed a very familiar chakra signature approaching at a fast speed. He glanced down the alleyway but noticed it was a dead end. Doing the only thing he could think of, he grabbed Kushina tightly and quietly whispered, "hold on".

* * *

><p>Kakashi had been enjoying a rather calm day for ANBU. No market riots, hostile ninjas, or leaf ninja cracking and going on killing sprees. All-in-all, a pretty calm day, and he was finally going to get to read some of his new Icha Icha book. His eye crinkled upward (not that you could tell under his porcelain mask) and he let out a small perverted giggle.<p>

Just as he was about to open up his book, a small flash of red and bright yellow hair caught his eye, but not before immediately disappearing behind an alleyway. Kakashi raised an eyebrow. _That certainly didn't look suspicious_, he thought sarcastically. Pouting slightly as he put away his book, he started moving towards the alleyway, intent on finding out who was trying to hid from him. As he neared, he had a niggling sensation he knew the two chakra signatures he sensed, but before he could round the corner, there was a flare of chakra. Alarmed, Kakashi quickly sprinted around the corner only to find nobody there. Kakashi's eyes narrowed, something was up. Looking around, he noticed that there were some footprints in the ground. Bending down to inspect them, he noticed with slight puzzlement that they were incredibly small, only about the size of a child's foot.

**AN: Don't get used to quick updates, I just felt inspired today. Expect a week to two weeks an update, but I will try to make the chapters longer in return. If I decide to do a quick update, it will probably be short. **


	3. Chapter 2

**AN: I went back and fixed the two previous chapters with all the spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. I'd also like to shout out to kakashi-is-hot, who was my first reviewer, and to FFFreak21 and calypso tchaka, both of which reviewed last chapter.**

**Chapter 2**

Kushina never had gotten used to nauseous feeling of being pulled through the Hiraishin no Justu (Flying Thunder God Technique). What surprised her though was that Minato was right there with her puking out his guts. She hadn't seen that happen to him since he had first started experimenting with the justu.

"Lower... chakra... reserves... on this body... remind me... not to do that again", he managed between heaves. Ah, that explained it. Kushina started to look around to get her bearing, and was surprised to find they had landed just about ten feet from their house. Quickly wiping her mouth off on the hem of Minato's jacket, much to his apparent displeasure with the way he tried to stop her unsuccessfully, she started walking towards their house, taking in its sight. The forestry was starting to overgrow it a bit, but it's nothing that a good full day of gardening wouldn't take care of. _I'm starting to think we might actually be in the future. Question is how long have we been gone?_ She let her senses drift through the house, looking for any sign of human life. After finding nothing, she brought herself back to the world with the disappointed frown. They had come here hoping that they might find Naruto living here, either by himself or with a friend of theirs. It had been a long shot, but they needed to find Naruto, to know that he was alright.

She pushed these thoughts aside before getting to work, they were here for another reason. She quickly ran into their room and was extremely relieved to find that it appeared completely untouched, minus the incredibly thick layer of dust coating everything. She hurriedly grabbed the items most precious to them: their small photo album, their wedding rings (they didn't wear them in public due to the secretive nature of their marriage, it was not public knowledge), and some of the random justu scrolls lying around on the floor and sealed them into a specialized sealing scrolls. After she had put those away, she bent over and pulled off a loose floorboard that was underneath their bed. She pulled what remained of the legendary Uzushiogakure (Village Hidden among the Whirling Tide) library, about two dozen scrolls on advanced Fūinjutsu (Sealing Justu) usage and theory. She sealed these along with everything else and headed downstairs, where her husband was exiting the weapons room with a couple of sealed scrolls. He nodded to her and they both hid the scrolls on their body.

As they were making their way to the exit of their property, they both sensed an unfamiliar chakra signature almost right on top of them. They both paused their movement and tensed, ready for anything, as the ninja dropped from the treetops to meet them.

"Hey you! Kyuubi br-oh, never mind. Ahem, halt, you are in a restricted area by the order of the Sandiame Hokage, state your business or prepare to be apprehended!"

Kushina almost snorted. This guy was obviously a newly minted chunin, throwing around his weight like that. She knew that only ANBU or the Konoha Ninja Police Force had the authority to actually evict people from restricted areas. She was about to step forward to tell him to screw off, but Minato's outstretched hand halted the idea. Instead she turned her quizzical eyes towards him, trying to figure out what he had planned.

Making sure to put on his best "Little Innocent Kid" face, Minato put the largest amount of guilt in his as possible. "I'm sorry ninja-san, but me and my... friend here were playing in the forest, and didn't notice when we had crossed over into this place. We are very sorry and will leave immediately sir. By the way ninja-san, we were wondering, when did the Hokage-sama say people couldn't play over here?"

The chunin's eyes softened after Minato talked, falling for his lie. "That's ok little guy", he said, crouching down so he was eye level with Minato while placing his hand on Minato's shoulder (Kushina was biting her tongue right now to keep herself from laughing at the chunin's stupidity). "Just make sure you don't come back here again?" At Minato's vigorous nod, the chunin smiled, before thinking back about when the order was given.

"It would have been the morning after the Kyuubi attack on the village, about eight years ago". At this, both Kushina's and Minato's eyes widened. _Eight years... We've been gone for eight freaking years! My god, I've missed Naruto's first words, his first step, I've missed almost his entire childhood!_ Kushina shook herself from her thoughts, but glanced over to Minato to find he was dealing with the same issues. She looked up to the chunin staring at them worriedly, wondering what he had said that had put them in such a bad mood. Remembering what he had said when he first arrived, she decided to question him on it.

"Um, ninja-san, what were you saying about the Kyuubi when you first got here?" The reaction Kushina got was not what she expected. The chunin started sweating bullets immediately and tried to get a reply out through his stammering.

"I-i-i, uh, didn't s-say anything a-about the k-k-kyuubi br-" he cut himself off at this point, seeming to realize he couldn't even fool these small children with the horrible job he was doing, trying to lie. He quickly formed the hand seals for the shunshin and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Kushina and Minato both look at each other once the smoke cleared. "That was weird", they both echoed.

* * *

><p>Kushina groaned in frustration. They had visited nearly every single orphanage in Konoha, and they had yet to find a single person that so much as even heard of "Namikaze Naruto". The first time it had happened, they had been surprised. They were almost certain that Naruto would be well known, if not for holding the Kyuubi then as being the son of the late Yondiame Hokage, but nobody so much as heard of the name before. As they entered the last one on the list they had, they found a kind-looking old lady sitting behind an old desk. As they neared her, Kushina took the lead, tired with their lack of findings and becoming far more impatient with each and every orphanage they had visited.<p>

"Did you ever have a kid named Naruto here, blond hair, kinda looked like this gaki?" She jerked her thumb back at Minato, who simply sighed at her behavior. He couldn't ever get a break could he?

"You don't mean the Kyuu- I mean, the Uzumaki brat do you? He wasn't worth the extra money the Sandiame offered to keep him here, I sent him on his rightful way soon enough", the old lady said with a snarl, before turning around to look at something on the wall.

Kushina realized that the "Uzumaki brat" must be her son, seeing as she was the only Uzumaki left in the fire country to her knowledge. Once she fully comprehended what the old lady had said, she started to feel pure, unadulterated rage course through her veins. This women... this old hag, was calling her son a troublesome brat and had apparently kicked **her **son out of the orphanage. She stepped forward, fully intent on pummeling the old women into the wall behind her, but was restrained by Minato. Not that he was taking this with a straight face either, he had clearly came to the same conclusion as his wife, and was having issues restraining himself from committing a violent action. The old women, apparently oblivious to the two people contemplating her death behind her back, suddenly spoke up again.

"Ah yes, here it is... I had him here 3 years ago. That's when I sent him off, good riddance!"

The room became deathly quiet, one could of heard a senbon drop. The old women glanced over to the children to see them both stilled, hair covering their eyes while looking downward slightly. the old women looked between them a few times in confusion, not sure what had happened.

"Kushina?"

"Yes?"

"I think we should leave before either of us decide to do something _drastic_".

At that moment, Minato let go of Kushina, and they both walked out of the building, making neither eye contact or saying another word to the old lady.

* * *

><p>Kakashi sighed as he laid back in his chair. He was currently in the ninja lounge in the ANBU. He had given up trying to trace the two people from the alleyway, whatever justu that had been used left no trace whatsoever, and that's what had frustrated him so much. Even a Shunshin could usually be traced, it left a faint trail of chakra of the path taken, but there had been nothing left! He had given up after about 30 minutes and decided he could come back to the lounge and get some quality reading time in. He did his trademark perverted giggle, before reaching to pull out his book and opening it to the first page, but a conversation from a nearby table stopped him in his tracks.<p>

"Did you hear? I had to pull in Nakiaza Yuritashi, that chunin that just got promoted in the last exam. The fool was 'patrolling' restricted area S-21, tried to apprehend two children for trespassing", an ANBU with a raven mask stated smugly.

At this Kakashi spoke up, "Ne... isn't S-21 the Yondiame's old house?"

Raven looked up in surprise, it was rare that ANBU captain, let alone the famous _Kopi Ninja no Kakashi _(Copy Ninja Kakashi), came and asked a subordinate for clarification on anything, they usually just worked amongst their fellow captains. "Y-Yes sir, I was their earlier today".

"And do you have a description of these children you mentioned?"

Raven gave Kakashi a questioning look before answering, "Yes sir, two small children, one girl with long red hair, bit of a round face, the other Yuritashi-san accidently mistook as the Kyuubi container at first, looks a lot like him, but without the whisker marks. The fool said he almost looked like a chibi Yondiame"

Kakashi's book closed with a snap loud enough to make the ANBU jump. Before they knew it, he was gone from the room.

The remaining ANBU looked at each for a few moments, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

* * *

><p>"He was five years old! They kicked him out of the orphanage when he was five years old!". Kushina was practically screaming her lungs out at Minato, who felt just as bad as she did at what they had learned. He grimaced internally at what life he had left his son, he felt like a horrible father.<p>

"Kushina, please tone it down, people are starting to stare", he practically hissed in her ear. Sure enough, people had begun to stare at them, and whisper between themself. "Do you want ANBU on us?".

This seemed to stop Kushina from at least yelling, but he could tell she was still fuming inside.

The sound of children laughing drew their attentions temporarily away from depression at finding out about their son. They noticed they were walking next to a playground, filled with children about their age. Kushina smiled slyly at Minato for a second, before running off towards the playground. Minato sighed yet again but had a huge smile plastered across his face. They were technically children, they had an excuse to just relax for a little bit.

He was brought out of his musing when he ran straight into Kushina and both of them fell to the ground. Minato looked in confusion to Kushina to find he eyes glued straight ahead. Looking up, he saw what she, and likewise collapsed on the ground. A child, a small blond haired child was sitting on a lone swing, looking upon the other children playing with such a saddening look on his face it was nearly unbearable to even look at. But that wasn't any child, that was his _son_!

* * *

><p>Kushina barely noticed Minato knock her down. Her eyes were stuck on the boy she knew was his son. She knew the look in his eyes, the look of person without love, without anyone that cared for them. She knew there was something she needed to do. Without even thinking about it, she picked herself up and started running towards him, as fast as she could. It took a moment for the boy to notice her, and he quickly tried to scramble out of the way, but it was too late. The moment Kushina reached him, she opened her arms and hugged him as tightly as she could, tears streaming down her eyes.<p>

**AN: Yes I know its a cliffy, I finally understand why authors like to use them so much :P. You can expect an update in the next week, depends how motivated I am. Next chapter is likely to be told mostly from Naruto's perspective going on from this point. The story will stay I'm think centric to Naruto, Minato, and Kushina, with occasional shifts to outlying characters. Anyway, R&R, every review means a lot.**


	4. Chapter 3

**AN: A happy shout out to the five people that reviewed last chapter, Flopperstein, calypso tchaka, Narudevilfan, srkaddict, and last but not least kakashi-is-hot. Thank you so much for the reviews ^_^**

**EDIT AN: Wow, I severely apologize for what a mess this chapter was once I got around to editing it. I'm going to stop posting chapters before editing them, this was atrocious.**

**Chapter 3**

_It wasn't fair_.

These three words kept on repeating themselves over and over in Naruto's head as he gazed out onto the playground. He saw children playing with adults, children playing with children, but no one wanted to play with Naruto. He had thought that after he had joined the academy, things would get better, people would stop ignoring him because he was going to become a ninja, but nothing changed. People still ignored him, kids his age stayed away because their parents told them too, he was still utterly alone and forgotten. Some people might have argued that Old Man Hokage spent time with the boy, but Naruto, while still young, knew better. The Old Man constantly made time in his schedule to be with Naruto, but he was still Hokage, and couldn't do it too often to make a difference.

Naruto watched as some parents called their kids in, leaving the playgrounds to go back home. He felt his grip on the swing set's rope tighten, as he looked down, desperately trying to keep himself from crying. It just wasn't fair.

When Naruto finally managed to shift his gaze up from the ground below him, he was greeted by a strange sight. There was a red-haired girl... running straight towards him! Quickly trying to scurry out of the way, Naruto jumped out of the swing and quickly tried to dodge out of the path of the charging female. What happened next completely confused him.

The red-haired girl... hugged him? Naruto looked down to find the girl's arms tightly wrapped around his upper body, obviously having no intent of letting go. Naruto, unused to human contact of this degree, noticeably shifted awkwardly in her grip, something that didn't go unnoticed by the girl with the way she tightened her grip around his torso.

At this point, questions where flying through his head at a mile a second. Who was this girl? Why was she hugging him? What the hell is going on? He only vaguely registered a blond-haired kid approach him from the direction the girl had ran from. He stood their awkwardly for a few more moments before he noticed a feeling. It was something new, something he had never felt before. He couldn't describe it in the least, only he knew it felt _right._ Slowly, he raised his hands and closed them behind the girls back, returning the hug, but not nearly as full force as she had given it. He still wasn't sure what was going on, or what had prompted this girl he had never seen before to hug him, but he decided to disregard that for a few moments and relished in this sensation of rightness.

What happened next possibly shocked Naruto even more. As she lifted her face to meet his, he was blown back by the look in her eye. Those deep, violet eyes conveyed such a sense of understanding that Naruto nearly stumbled in shock. Those eyes _understood _the loneliness that he had gone through. It was as if they were reaching out and saying, "I understand you". Naruto could only gape slightly at this outpouring of emotion. _This girl knows how I feel, she's maybe like me, _Naruto thought silently to himself

"Do you want to play with us?" a voice popped up out of seemingly nowhere. Both Naruto and the girl jumped, having forgotten there was a third party present. Naruto raised his hand and scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, having forgotten the other blond kid was here in his stupor. He paused once he noticed that the girl had let go of him and done the exact same thing. Passing it off as coincidence, Naruto put on a grin that nearly split his face in half before replying to the other boy.

"Yeah, I would like that". Naruto silently hoped this wasn't a dream, and if it was, that it would never end.

* * *

><p>Naruto laughed in joy as he managed to tag the boy again, sprinting off in the opposite direction not a second later. He couldn't remember the last time he had had this much fun. He looked around the park to find all the other children had left except for the three of them, and it was getting rather dark. Naruto momentarily paniced. He knew once their parents showed up, they would tell the two kids that he had been playing with not to do so anymore, it's what always happened.<p>

"When are your parents going to come get you?" Naruto asked with a barely noticeable quiver in his voice from the thought of his two new friends being taken away from him like all the others. The two of them exchanged a quick glace before the girl stepped forth and spoke.

"We are both orphans... we don't have any parents". To say Naruto was shocked would be an understatement. He hadn't actually ever met any other kids his age that were orphans. A sudden realization that this meant there would be no one to tell them not to play with Naruto filled him with hope that they might not go away. Naruto did realize that it was becoming late though, and the sun was likely to go down in the next few hours. A loud grumble simultaneously rang out from all their stomachs, reminding them how long they had been playing. A thought quickly formed in Naruto's head.

"Hey, how about we all get dinner, then I can walk you guys back to where you live. I know this place that makes great ramen". From the way the girls face light up and the boy smiled, he knew he had the right choice.

* * *

><p>"Oi! Old Man, one miso ramen please", Naruto said as he sat down at his customary stool in Ichiraku's, the red-haired girl and yellow-haired boy following close behind him.<p>

Teuchi looked up from his pot to see Naruto walking in followed by two children his age. His old heart warmed a good bit to see that Naruto was making some friends. He knew of his burden as did most of Konoha and knew that most parents forbade their children from so much as looking at him. "Coming right up Naruto, who are your friends?"

At this Naruto opened his mouth but closed it after a few seconds. A concentrated frown marred his face, had he really forgotten to ask their names? Looking back at them, they both smiled understandably at Naruto, having both forgotten to introduce themselves when getting caught up in the fun of playing with their son. The blond one stepped forward to introduce them. "My name is Minato, and this is Kushina".

A small splash resounded as Teuchi accidently dropped his pot in a deep fryer. A small amount of cursing could be heard as he quickly fished it out before the food was ruined. Neither he nor Naruto noticed Minato and Kushina both cringe at the horrible mistake they had just made. _How could I be that stupid! _Minato felt like ripping his hair out at his idiocy.

At this point, Teuchi spoke up, "Sorry about that, it's just those names reminded me of a old pair of love birds. No matter, that was a long time ago". He got to work cleaning off the pot and finishing the meal. Ayame walked in from the back of the stand, blushing slightly at her father's clumsiness.

"So what will you two be having?" Ayame asked to Minato and Kushina.

"I'll have a salt ramen", Kushina was salivating at the chance to eat some ramen, by far her favorite food in the world. She had heard stories about this place back when she was pregnant, but had never been able to try it.

"Just a pork ramen would be fine", stated Minato with a smile on his face. While Minato was certainly no ramen freak, he enjoyed eating it from time to time.

Ayame smiled at them, and then walked off, returning moments later with their orders. Much to Minato's slight dismay, both Kushina and Naruto started digging into their food ravenously, barely pausing to breath. He couldn't help the smile that broke out on his face though. Naruto was definitely the child of the two of them, from what he had seen so far.

"More please!" "More please!"

A resounding bang went off as both Naruto and Kushina slammed their bowls down on the counter simultaneously. Both of them looked at each other in shock, neither having seen anyone manage to keep up eating ramen at their pace. They were pulled out of their daze as two new bowls of ramen where slide in front of them. They exchanged a mischievous grin before both digging into their meals, a silent agreement to a ramen eating contest that could only be understood by ramen freaks such as themselves.

* * *

><p>"Ugh, I give, I give!" Kushina cried out before pushing her thirteenth bowl away, feeling as if her insides where about to explode at any moment. She had never been beaten at a ramen eating contest before, she was certainly upset. Naruto didn't even look full; he was eating away as fast as ever!<p>

Naruto slurped up the last of his noodles before putting his bowl down and giving Kushina his trademark foxy grin. Truth be told, he was surprised that Kushina had been able to eat that much. Of the few people that had challenged him to ramen eating contests, no one had ever even come close. His respect for her had risen a bit.

The realization of how much ramen they had eaten finally hit Naruto. He realized he was going to have to clean out Gama-chan (his frog wallet) to pay for all of it. He sighed, looks like he was going to have to forget about getting his refrigerator fixed.

To his surprise, Minato suddenly pulled out a wallet and produced a 1,000 ryu note, much to the surprise of everyone in the stand but Kushina. "Don't worry, we'll pay for it, we have extra money", he told Naruto. Noting Naruto's internal debate on paying for it anyway or not, Minato quickly pushed the note into Ayame hands, gave a quick, "Thank you for the meal Teuchi-san, Ayame-san", and grabbed both Naruto and Kushina by the arm and pulled them away into the street.

Naruto shook free of his grip after a few moments, sending a glare at Minato before speaking. "You didn't need to do that; I was willing to pay for it".

Minato only shrugged in response. "We have the extra money, no need to waste yours when we bought the majority anyway". Of course, what Minato didn't add was that he knew that Naruto probably had very little money, being an orphan, and paying for that meal would clean him out completely.

Naruto glared at Minato a little bit before giving up with a sigh and looking ahead. "So where do you guys live?". At this, Naruto noticed both of them shift nervously where they were standing, but he wasn't sure what to make of it before they spoke up.

"We... actually just got into this town and don't have a place to live", Kushina explained, "We were thinking that we would just go rent a hotel for the next few nights until we can work out living arrangements". Naruto frowned at this. They had just paid for a huge meal, and now they were going to go pay for a hotel on top of that? Rich or not, that was a lot of money to blow through in one night and Naruto as an orphan understood that they wouldn't be able to go long like that. He was also worried that he wouldn't be able to find them again if they stayed somewhere as temporary as a hotel. He might come back the next day and find they had already left. Naruto's next words surprised everyone, even himself.

"You know what; you guys can come stay at my apartment until you find your own. I've got the extra space, there's no need to go spend the money on a hotel". Naruto's eyes widened once he realized what he had said. He had no idea why he felt so... comfortable around these people, after having known them for only a few hours. He just went and offered his home to these people without a second thought. _I don't regret offering it though, _Naruto realized.

Both of them looked at each other, before scurrying off a little bit to discuss it in private. Naruto couldn't make out anything they were saying, but he did notice Kushina in a very heated argument with Minato. After a minute or two, they walked back over, Kushina with a very happy smile on her face while Minato looked rather defeated by the way he frowned and slouched.

"That would be awesome!"

As they were walking away, Teuchi turned around to say goodbye to Naruto. As he laid eyes on the two children and inspected their faces for the first time, he felt his grip slip on the bowl he had been carrying. By this time, the trio of new friends had already rounded the corner, so they didn't notice the bowl hit the ground and shatter.

* * *

><p>"Well, this is it!" Naruto exclaimed as they reached the bottom of the stairs leading up to the complex. Kushina just looked at it for a few seconds before turning to Naruto and saying the first thing that came to mind.<p>

"You live in a giant fruitcake". An indignant "Hey!" could be heard from Naruto while Minato started cracking up laughing. Naruto just grumbled and started leading them up the stairs to his apartment.

After unlocking the door and leading them inside, Naruto flipped on the lights. "Home sweet home", Naruto said contentedly. It truly wasn't that bad of an apartment. Three rooms: a bedroom, a joined kitchen and living area, and one bathroom. Naruto moved to the closet and pulled out two futons, laying them out on the ground in his living room. Before he had even turned around, he heard the door to his bedroom slam shut. He noticed Kushina was now missing, and gave a questioning look to Minato. He just raised an eyebrow before responding.

"What did you expect? She's a girl, needs her space", he responded. At Naruto's confused glace, he simply sighed for what seemed like the hundredth time of the day and decided to explain later. It was obvious Naruto didn't have human contact that often, let alone with girls. He cringed internally once he realized what he would have to do eventually for his duty as a father. He was physically the same age as his son right now! Talk about an awkward future conversation, he was not looking forward to giving his son "The Talk".

Naruto, noticing that Minato's good mood disappeared, decided to drop it for now and question him on it later. Preparing their futons, they both let out rather loud yawns, reminding them of how late it was. Both of them laid out on the futons, getting comfortable.

"Goodnight Naruto", Minato said in a low voice with a yawn.

Naruto's heart warmed. Never in the eight years of his life had anyone wished him good night, nor had he done so for anyone else. With a near whisper, Naruto said the one word he never knew meant so much to him.

"Goodnight..."

* * *

><p>Several civilians that night were nearly knocked off their feet as a dog-masked ANBU captain blew through the streets at a neck breaking pace. Stalls were overturned, animals sent scurrying, but none of it mattered to Kakashi.<p>

Throughout all his years as an elite shinobi, he had only come across one space-time justu that he had been unable to trace, and that Justu had been the Hiraishin no Justu, the justu that gave his dead sensei his reputation. On top of that, the user or users of a seemingly untraceable justu had been red and yellow haired, two hair colors not common in Konoha, or even the Fire Country for that matter. These two people, _children,_ Kakashi corrected himself, had been found not much later outside of his sensei's house, one of them mistaken Uzumaki Naruto. Kakashi was not a fool, he knew of Minato's and Kushina's relationship and the fact that Minato would never be able to seal the Kyuubi in just any random child. Naruto was their child, and he bared a striking resemblance to Minato.

Rounding the corner, he didn't quite manage to dodge out of the way and crashed straight into a man in the middle of the street. After pulling himself up from the rather embarrassing fall (_I'm an ANBU captain kami damnit!), _he went to go help the person that he had run into. He was surprised to find he actually recognized him as Teuchi, owner of the Ichiraku ramen stand. He looked over to the side and realized he was right outside of it.

"Goman Teuchi-san, excuse my clumsiness, I'm... distracted", Kakashi let out in a low tone, as he picked up and handed Teuchi the trash bag he had been carrying.

Teuchi looked up to the dog-masked ANBU with a sudden smile on his face. "Ah, Kakashi, good to see you. I'd recognize that voice anywhere. You really should stop by more often, Ayame misses you". Teuchi said with a grin.

Kakashi's felt a tic appear on his forehead about how easily his anonymity had been dismantled, but decided it couldn't be helped. He couldn't help but notice that Teuchi had broken his gaze to stare up at the Hokage Mountain, specifically the Yondiame's face.

"Is something wrong Teuchi-san?" This shocked Teuchi out of his reverie. He glanced up at Kakashi with a ponderous look on his face.

"You were the Yondiame's student, weren't you Kakashi?" he asked. At Kakashi's nod, he pushed on. "Well, there strangest thing happened today. Naruto came into the stand today with two new friends. I didn't get a good look at them until right when they were leaving, but they said their names where Minato and Kushina". Teuchi failed to notice the whitening of Kakashi's knuckles as his grip tightened. "I passed it off as just a coincidence, but then right when they were leaving, I got a look at both of their faces. I swear, they could of been that couple's children! They were the splitting image of the both of them!"

Kakashi spoke up at this moment, "Ah, thank you Teuchi-san. Have a nice night". With that, he disappeared in the swirl of leaves, leaving old Teuchi to his thoughts.

**AN: I was pretty disappointed in how the chapter turned out. I just finished it five minutes ago but am going to go ahead and post it and fix it later. I felt like I could of handled the flow of the story better, especially in the beginning. I might come back later and just redo the whole first half of the chapter. Anywho, R&R please, don't expect a chapter for the next few days, I feel like I've lost a little bit of my motivation, but I will NOT abandon the story, rest assured.**

**PS: Hit 1000 hits last chapter! Woohoo! :D**


	5. Chapter 4

**AN: srkaddict, xxAre-chanxx, Kai Maciel (go check out her story Phoenix Rising, very very good), narutofan, Narudevilfan, ferduran, pokemon lover2, CJ Snow, darkjedi35, Bad Habits, and Devil-O-Angel, thank you all for your reviews so much :D**

**Chapter 4**

Minato awoke as he usually did, fully aware after a few second. Normally he would of felt relieved to know that his ingrained ninja instincts had seemed to pass over to his younger body, had there not been a rather large chakra signature in the room he could indentify as neither Naruto's or Kushina's. He let his senses drift to try to find the other chakra signatures in the apartment. To his dismay, he was unable to locate Kushina's while Naruto's was right next to his, but seemed somewhat irregular. _Must be a genjustu,_ Minato concluded.

Fingering the kunai scroll in his pocket, he unraveled it just a bit and pumped a little chakra into it to summon one of his special tri-pointed kunai. Readying his body to attack, he threw the kunai in the approximate direction he sensed the intruder. He was quick to follow it, up and out of the bed not half a second later, jumping off towards the unidentified intruder, preparing a left hook.

Minato was rather forcibly reminded he only had the body of an eight-year old child and maybe the speed of a genin as he was rather violently backhanded by the intruder and sent crashing into the wall. _I need to start doing some serious training_, Minato managed to think as he tried slowly to force his body back up.

"Ma ma, hasty now aren't we?" his attacker let out with a low chuckle. Minato glanced up to see a dog-masked ANBU standing in the middle of the room. Smirking, Minato formed a Ram handseal, before he disappeared and reappeared right behind the masked ANBU, already in the process of delivering a sideways kick to the operative's head. To Minato's surprise and irritation, the ANBU ducked, grabbed his other leg, and swung him around into wall where he had first landed when backhanded.

The ANBU bent down and picked up the tri-point kunai, turning it over to seemingly inspect it. Minato noticed him pull off the small tag of paper around the handle of the kunai inscribed with special kanji and burn it. Minato paled noticeably. He was now dealing someone that had somewhat intimate knowledge of the workings of the Hiraishin no Justu, which suddenly made everything a lot more complicated. His reserves were already almost completely depleted again after having used the Hirashin, things weren't looking good.

He noticed a subtle shift in the ANBU's stance; his entire body was now tensed, obviously not planning on underestimating Minato, despite the fact that he was (physically) a kid. He internally groaned at whatever kami decided that he wasn't allowed to get a break. The ANBU shot forward, fist leading, aiming straight at Minato's head. Minato just barely managed to shift his body out of the way of the attack, making attack miss and instead hit the wall, knocking a good portion of the wall down in its wake. Minato felt something connect with his chin and his head hit the back of the wall before everything went black

* * *

><p>Minato slowly came back to conscious with a groan. Moving a bit, he noticed he was tied down with ropes around a pillar, arms separated in order to prevent him from making handseals. His eyes shot open and took in his surroundings. The first thing he realized was that he seemed to be in a large abandoned warehouse. That would probably put the location somewhere in the industrial district in Konoha, probably in the southwestern quadrant. The second thing he noticed was a rather aggravated-looking redhead tied to the pillar next to him. <em>Kushina doesn't look happy, she must of been defeated rather quickly<em>, Minato concluded.

It was about now that their captor decided to show himself, still donned in the familiar cloak and dog mask of the ANBU. He stepped forward and spoke, "Ah, comfortable now?"

Minato would have slapped his own face if he could of. He knew that voice! Everything made a little bit more sense now; the dog mask, the fast reaction to the Hiraishin, even the burning of the seal array on the kunai that let him use them as jump points. "I suppose it's been a long time, hasn't it Kakashi?" Minato spoke out in response. He noticed the ever subtle signs of Kakashi's body tensing from being referred to name.

"Well, I guess I don't need this anymore, do I?" Kakashi said as he reached to remove his mask, taking it off and letting it drop to the ground with a dull thud. Minato saw him reach up and pull up his headband to expose his spinning, three-tomoe sharingan. He saw his face concentrate in a frown, probably unable to see through any type of illusionary justu that might have been covering Minato and Kushina. He growled slightly in frustration and drew a kunai. Kakashi started walking towards Kushina. "I don't know what kind of kinjustu (Forbidden Justu) this is, but I should kill you both right now on the spot for daring to defile the memory of my sensei and his wife" Kakashi spoke while raising the kunai to Kushina's neck.

Minato struggled valiantly against his bonds, panic dominating his body, desperately trying to break free in order to reach Kushina before Kakashi decided to do anything drastic. This did not go unnoticed by Kakashi; after all, it had been what he was looking for. Kakashi brought his gaze back up to Kushina, who meet his with a steely one of her own, not one bit fazed by knife pushing up against her jugular. It was she who spoke next, "You never were good at lying, were you Kakashi? Even though you always kept your face covered up and hide behind that mask of yours, you could never hide how you really felt. It never changed did it?"

Kushina's accusing words obviously had a visible effect on Kakashi, from the way he nearly lost his grip on his kunai. Readjusting his grip, he put the kunai back up to her neck, but not nearly as forcibly. Looking into his eyes, even from his angle, Minato could tell that the words Kushina had uttered had done more than just shocked Kakashi; more like rocked him to his core.

Minato recalled Kushina becoming close to Kakashi after the close of the Third Great Shinobi War. Not a romantic interest mind you, more like Kushina saw him almost as a kindred spirit after losing both his teammates to the war, Obito to Iwagakure forces at the Battle of Kanabi Bridge, and Rin not long after due to some skirmishes with Kirigakure forces advancing on the Fire Country's eastern coast. The loss of both of them had hurt Kakashi more then he let know to his friends, hiding behind imitations of Obito's eccentricities and habits.

Kushina had reached out to him, offering her hand in friendship to someone that had lost so many. Minato recalled him being rather reluctant at first, afraid of befriending anyone else in fear that they too, would die. This resulted in Kushina rather… forcibly… coaxing him into a friendship. It took time, but they eventually grew close as friends. Kushina's ability to make friends with more or less anyone she put forth the effort too never ceased to amaze Minato. He also realized that with his and his wife's "death", Kakashi had been truly alone.

Minato reminded himself of the situation at hand and shook himself from his reminiscing. He brought himself back to the present to see Kakashi eyeing both of them wearily. He spoke with a barely noticeable quiver. "I saw my sensei and his wife die, sacrificing themselves for the sake of the village, with my own two eyes. It has also been proven that it is impossible to revive the long dead by means of Justu (please remember this is before Orochimaru has been seen using the Edo Tensei, it's still widely believed to be impossible to revive the dead)". Minato was about to open his mouth to retort but was stopped before he could start. "But, I was able to confirm that you were defiantly not disguised. I took a small DNA sample from both of you had it run through the ANBU testing labs. It tested 100% positive for both of your identities with the DNA we had on file". Kakashi brought his hands up to his gravity-defying hair and started pulling on it, frustration at the situation clearly showing. "I would so much like to believe that my sensei and his wife and been resurrected from the dead, albeit as small children, but my common-sense is screaming at that this situation just isn't possible". He looked at Minato and Kushina at this moment, and Minato could see clearly defined hope ablaze in Kakashi's eyes. "What I need is proof".

Minato smiled a confident grin. Looking over to Kushina, she nodded. Minato closed his eyes and focused on rotating chakra in both of his palms. After a few moments, the chakra became visible, shredding apart the inferior material. He quickly brought his hands down, cutting through his binds like butter, before placing his body perpendicular to pillar itself, and pushing off towards Kushina's with a chakra enhanced jump.

"Rasengan!" Minato cried as he slammed through the pillar entirely, sending debris and dust everywhere, but also freeing Kushina from her bonds. He smirked; Kakashi was in for it now.

Cracking her neck a bit, Kushina let loose a particularly feral smile before going through a series handsings. As soon as she finished the last one, Bird, a multitude of ethereal chains shot out of her body, racing towards Kakashi at ridiculous speeds. He didn't bother trying to dodge and they quickly wrapped around him, securing him in place.

Minato and Kushina both walked over to Kakashi, who was looking down at the chains in mock surprise, as if to convey that he had no idea how they got there. He looked up at the two children and said the next words they were all expecting, "Well, I think that was pretty solid proof".

* * *

><p>After freeing Kakashi and relocating back to Naruto's apartment, they sat down at his table to talk. They all cast a glace over to a snoring Naruto, who was still sleeping, despite all the commotion that had occurred earlier. Everyone sweat-dropped a bit at this. <em>I only put a minor genjustu on him, it should have worn off by now<em>, Kakashi thought silently.

Minato explained everything that had happened so far, from their arrival to sharing the apartment with Naruto. Kakashi nodded and only injected occasionally to ask for clarification or to ask a question. Once he had finished, he sat back it his chair and didn't say anything for a few minutes.

"I have a favor to ask", Minato told Kakashi. Kakashi turned his head to Minato and nod, indicating for him to continue. "I need to get the paperwork filed out for two new admittances to the Ninja Academy, and Hiruzen cannot find out about it. I assume you know a guy". Kakashi raised an eyebrow at the specificity of the request, but simply gave a nod. After all, Minato was a Hokage, technically his superior. _It shouldn't be too hard, I have a couple of favors to call in,_ Kakashi thought.

Kakashi stood up to leave, but Minato put up a hand for a second. "Remember, you cannot tell Hiruzen. I'm not ready to step back up to the position of Hokage". Kakashi hesitated for a moment, before nodding again. He disappeared in a sudden swirl of leaves.

A sudden yawn jolted both Minato and Kushina in their seats. They turned around to see Naruto sitting up, looking confused in their general direction.

"What the hell happened to my wall?"

**AN: Sorry, the chapter is a bit shorter but it also contains a fight scene, so I feel its worth it. This is my first time writing an action sequence, if you think I should write more or stop writing them all together, etc etc.**


	6. Chapter 5

**AN: Thank you ferduran, Flopperstein, pokemon lover2, earthlover, xxAre-chanxx, Kakashi-is-hot, Narutofan, CJ Snow, srkaddict, pharix, hitsugayatoshirou, CandyGirl999, FFFreak21, and finally skraddict all for reviewing last chapter (I got so much :D). Some explanations and links are at the end of the chapter, if you are confused on the clothes described in the chapter.**

**NINJA EDIT: Ops, forgot to substitute out my page breaks, fixed now, sorry I epic fail...**

**Chapter 5**

Naruto grumbled slightly as he got dressed and trudged out the door. Minato had mumbled and Kushina smiled knowingly, much to Naruto's annoyance, when he tried to further question them on the fact that his wall was shattered into a million pieces, exposing the vacant apartment next to his. His landlord was not going to be happy.

He was about to walk out the door before Kushina's hand shot out, grabbed the collar of his jacket, and threw him back into the chair. Naruto looked up at Kushina in confusion, not sure why she had done that.

"You can't go out in that!" she said, gesturing to his orange and blue jumpsuit. Naruto looked down to inspect his clothes, finding nothing out of the ordinary with his attire. He squinted at Kushina, unsure at what she was getting at.

"What's wrong with my clothes?" Naruto asked questioningly. A resounding slap was heard in the room as both Minato and Kushina facepalmed at the stupid question. _So much like Kushina as a child_, Minato thought with slight exasperation. He took a seat in the other chair at the table before turning to face Naruto.

"You want to be a ninja right?" Minato asked. Naruto nodded, and Minato continued. "Well, orange isn't exactly what I would call camouflage. We are going to have to get you some new clothes". A look of understanding crossed Naruto's face before turning into one of slight panic. Before either Minato or Kushina knew it, the look had disappeared behind a large smile on Naruto's face. There was something… off… about that smile, but neither Minato nor Kushina could place what was wrong with it.

"Don't worry about me", Naruto said, smile still plastered across his face. "I'll go by myself later and ge-"

"No!" Kushina suddenly cried out in slight anger, she knew what he was trying to do, sidetrack them so they would forget. She brought up her fist and drove it through the wall next to her with a loud crash. "We are going right now to get you new clothes and neither of you are going to complain! Is that clear?" Fire was leaping from her eyes as she stared both Naruto and Minato down, daring either to disagree. If the intimidating glare wasn't enough, the fact that she was clenching and unclenching the fist that was not stuck in the wall, arm slightly twitching quelled any argument that was sure to arise.

Minato mumbled something that only vaguely sounded like "yes", already used to Kushina stubbornness when it came to arguments like this. Also, it wasn't like he was going to argue with her, Naruto absolutely needed new clothes. Naruto however, had had no similar experience before.

He stared up to her in shock, honestly scared out of his wits. He would have never thought a woman could be so scary. If it wasn't for the twitching fist he was eyeing wearily, he would have already of high tailed it out of there. As it was, his choices were rather limited. Choice A, make a break for the door and possible end up creating a new whole in the wall, or Choice B, he could go along with them for now. If he was lucky, he might be able to get them to avoid the stores that refused to sell things to him. Some of the seedy stores around the outer edge of the village would sell him items. They were marked up at least one-hundred percent, but Naruto didn't mind. At least they let him buy stuff in the first place.

"Ah, ah, ok, but I'm leading".

* * *

><p>Kushina eyed the small building wearily as they neared it. Depravity seemed to be coming off it in waves. It appeared mostly in bad condition, shutters were closed with one of the windows broken, paint peeling from the sides, several buckets of an unidentified liquid in them sat in front of the store, and a whole lot of broken glass was littering the street in front of the establishment. Kushina couldn't fathom why Naruto had taken them to such a seedy place, she knew for a fact that there was a huge amount of different places they could go closer to the center of the village that were much better than this. She then remembered the conversation with the old lady from the orphanage, how she had an incredibly bad disposition to Naruto for seemingly no reason. She wondered if this had anything to do with that. Dismissing it for another time, they entered the building, Naruto smiling rather nervously.<p>

The first thing that hit Kushina was the horrid smell. She easily identified it as the combined stench of smoke and alcohol. The second thing she noticed was that if the outside had looked bad, the inside was just as horrible. Dimly lit, there were several racks of old and torn clothes. It was absurdly hot in the building, obviously it wasn't properly ventilated and didn't have any air conditioning. There was also a fat, greasy-haired man sitting behind the counter, reading a paper. He looked up from the paper to stare at the new customers, glanced at each of them, his gaze lingering on Naruto and Kushina a little longer than necessary. She shivered slightly as the man's gaze passed from her back to his paper.

Minato and Kushina exchanged a glance as Naruto rushed forward, and he shifted through the mostly bare racks of clothes. Minato walked forward, presumably to help Naruto with his selection. Kushina walked off the observe the rest of the store. She didn't notice the fat, greasy-haired man approach from behind.

A hand shot out and grabbed her arm before she could react. She turned around to see the man staring at her with a lecherous grin. "Why hello there pretty", he said before letting out a disgustingly horrid laugh, like that of a hyena.

Kushina saw a flash of yellow hair in her peripherals before Minato's foot connected solidly with the man's gut. He was sent flying through a rack of clothes and into a closed door near the back of the room, which was promptly knocked off its hinges by the force of the man crashing into it. The man, surprisingly, managed to roll over off his back and tried to start to stand back up. He coughed up a good amount of blood, before raising his head and staring at Minato with pure rage.

The cold, merciless eyes that stared back at him surprised him. Those eyes promised a quick and prompt revenge h. They were cold and serious. The man actually started backing up into the room he had been sent into, those eyes _scared _him!

Minato just stared at him with those same eyes before speaking. "If you ever touch her or anyone I care about again, I will personally see that you suffer". At this, he turned around and walked out the front door, followed by Kushina, who was slightly upset that he had intervened before she could place her fist where the man's face had been, and Naruto, who was following Minato and looking at him with a look of awe.

"You need to teach me how to do that!"

* * *

><p>As they moved farther into the center of the village, Naruto became steadily more and more nervous. There could be no way that Minato and Kushina hadn't noticed the glares a good number of civilians were giving Naruto. Naruto even remembered Kushina and Minato both doing double takes when people glared in their general direction. He thought he saw Kushina stare back at him, but when he raised his head, she quickly looked forward again.<p>

They entered a small shop Naruto vaguely recognized as a shinobi clothing and equipment store that he had never been in. He nervously walked behind Minato and Kushina as they entered. He let out a sigh of relief when he didn't see anyone at the cash register. In fact, the store was more or less completely empty at the moment. Naruto could see rows of kunai and shuriken lining the walls, on top of tons of weapons he had never even seen before. There were many different kinds of blades, Naruto recognized some as katanas and tantos (short blade), but there were many others he didn't recognize at all. Naruto saw other things, like a pole with a sword attached to the end and a giant, metal spiked ball with a chain attached. There were an innumerable number of different weapons, and Naruto was captivated a bit.

Kushina laughed softly at the look on Naruto's face. She pulled him towards the clothing section of the store where Minato was already waiting for them. An amused grin marked Minato's face as he looked at Naruto's awestricken expression at all the weapons. Shaking his head slightly, he pulled out a shirt he had found. "I think you are going to like this one..."

* * *

><p>Naruto, Minato, and Kushina all shared a laugh at a joke Naruto had just made as they walked to the cash register. They had convinced Naruto try on a variety of different clothes before they had finally decided on something. Naruto had been very persistent on buying at least something that was orange. Minato and Kushina had eventually given in and agreed to buy a jacket that was almost completely identical to Minato's. It was mainly white, a zip up jacket with two stripes of burnt orange running the length's of his arm. Other than that, they had bought Naruto three plain black t-shirts that had the Konoha leaf symbol etched into the back in white, and two mesh undershirts. Naruto had also picked up three pairs of standard, dark blue ninja pants and a new pair of sandals. As a group, they had also picked up a selection of different kunai and shuriken for practice.<p>

As they neared the cash register, a middle-aged man entered from a door behind the register itself. Much to Naruto's sudden chagrin, the man's eyes narrowed upon landing on him. His gaze shot to his two companions, both who had noticed the man's glare with slight confusion. "I'm sorry", the man started, glare shifting back to Naruto, "but I'm going to have to ask you all to leave".

Kushina's bewilderment quickly turned to indignation at being asked to leave; her following words were spoken quickly and filled with anger. "What do you mean you 'have to ask us to leave'? We haven't done anything! We just want to buy these clothes anyway!"

The man's gaze turned to Kushina. "I reserve the right to deny service to anyone I chose, and I will not sell anything to your friend here", he said, gesturing to Naruto. He elaborated in an even tone, "He's a menace, always stealing things from stores and causing havoc, I have every right to deny him service".

Naruto bit back his response. He would usually try to deny the claims made against him in situations like this as they were usually mostly false. He never stole anything from stores, and though he did play pranks, they never were anything major. He knew denying people's claims usually only made them angrier at him and would usually result in said shopkeepers chasing him out of their stores with brooms. He couldn't let his new friends see him being chased out of stores like that, they might start to see him as everyone else did if they saw everyone hated or ignored him. This had been the main reason he didn't want to come this far into the village's center in the first place, seeing as there were far more people here, thusly the glares were much more obvious.

Naruto noticed Minato glance over in his direction again, obviously in deep concentration. Suddenly his face lit up, as if coming to some greater realization, much to Naruto's dismay. What he did next surprised Naruto.

"Ah, I apologize Shopkeeper-san, I had heard great things about your establishment, that you had only the finest quality items and service. I see that I was obviously mistaken. Me and my friends will take our leave now, maybe we will find a better store to buy our wares from and possibly form a long-term investment with" Minato said in an even voice, his eyes taking on the newly christened 'Serious Mode', as Naruto had called it earlier after their exchange at the seedy shop. Minato gave a slight bow before moving towards the door. The shopkeeper almost audibly snorted, who did this kid think he was? He was just a child, there was no way he had anything worthwhile.

Just as he was nearing the door, Minato seemingly caught his foot on a stool in the middle of the floor and was sent tumbling to the ground. His wallet seemed to slip out of this pocket and spill its contents all over the floor, which was by no means a small amount.

If the shopkeeper's eyelids shot open so wide it almost looked like his eyes were going to fall out of his head. That was _a lot _of thousand ryu notes. That was probably enough to buy out the entire store as it was, the shopkeeper realized. Minato picked himself up and started silently picking back up his money, body turned away from the shopkeeper to hide the smug smile on his face.

The shopkeeper internally debated his options momentarily. He shook his head, screw the Kyuubi brat, if he could make this kid a returning customer, he could be set. That was more money than he had ever seen in one place at a time. The man spoke right as Minato had finished putting the last of his money back in his wallet, "Hey kid, how about I run these items through for you?"

Naruto looked between Minato and the Shopkeeper in awe, unable to believe what had just happened. Someone had stood up for him, and they had won. Naruto felt a true smile start to creep across his face, happiness creeping into his heart.

* * *

><p>The trio of friends started making their way back to Naruto's apartment, hands full of bags carrying groceries and the clothes they had bought. They hadn't actually ran into any issues except for glares at the grocery stores from some customers and the checkout clerk. Both Minato and Kushina had responded in kind with their own glares, causes most of the instigators to turn away from them all together in embarrassment. Naruto had been relieved when they both seemed not to care that almost everyone hated him; he was also incredibly surprised that they seemed to be standing up for him.<p>

As they turned around the last corner before the apartment, Naruto spotted his landlord, Imakari Chouseki, standing in front of the apartment, looking extremely irate. He was a stubby, balding man probably somewhere in his late fifties. He didn't look particularly intimidating, but Naruto knew how angry he could get if provoked. Naruto and his two friends approached cautiously, not knowing exactly what his reaction was going to be on seeing them. As if on cue, Chouseki turned to face the small posse, anger contorting his face.

"Hey brat! Is this your idea of a prank? Making a huge hole in the wall? Do you have any idea how much it's going to cost to repair that? I expect you to pay for it! And another thing..." Kushina could feel her patience starting to become thinner and thinner as the man continued to rant. Minato glanced over to see that she was on the verge of sending the man on a little trip through a few building, so he decided to intervene before Chouseki became permanently disabled due to Kushina's temper.

"Ah, landlord-san, maybe I can help diffuse the situation?" Minato said quickly. Chouseki stopped mid rant, having forgot that Naruto had brought companions. Curious, he gestured for Minato to continue. "Well, you only have four apartments in this complex, and none of those except for Naruto's correct?". At Chouseki's nod Minato continued. "Well, seeing as the complex is in a state of disrepair, and it's fairly small, I propose we buy it from you" Minato state while taking out a scroll with the kanji for ryu scribbled on it. Chouseki actually looked fairly amused at the prospect of being bought out by a eight-year old until Minato unraveled the scroll and channeled a bit of chakra into it. With a small poof, a huge stack of money suddenly appeared.

"This should be one million ryu, I feel it's an acceptable price for the complex" Minato stated while Chouseki's jaw dropped. Chouseki looked between the stack of money and Minato in shock before he managed to regain control of his facial muscles enough to actually close his mouth. He straightened his back a bit and cleared his throught.

"I suppose you will want the deed then..." Chouseki trailed off, not actually having learned the child's name.

"Minato"

"-Minato-san. I'll try to get it to you tomorrow. I'll take care of most of the paperwork actually authenticating the transfer, but it shouldn't be too much work. I'll see you tomorrow then Minato-san". Chouseki turned to Naruto then for a second while a strange look came over his face that Naruto couldn't identify. Chouseki shook his head a bit before looking back at Naruto. "Naruto-san" he said with a curt, yet polite nod of his head, acknowledging him, if just a bit.

Chouseki took his leave at this point. Walking away, he realized that Naruto really hadn't been that bad of a tenant for the three years he had housed him. The only issue he had really ever had with him is that his presence had made it impossible to rent out any of the apartments. He was glad that he had finally ridded himself of that building. He still couldn't help but have his mind tell him that Naruto hadn't ever caused any trouble those three years. _Not that bad of a kid I guess..._

* * *

><p>"Naruto. Naruto!" Naruto was shaken from reverie from Kushina and Minato shouting his name. He couldn't believe what had happened these last two days since he met his two new friends. They had reached out to him and become his friends, slept in his apartment with him, went out and bought him new clothes (he had never received anything from anyone as a gift except for the Sandiame's allowance), stood up for him when everyone else scorned him, and now they had just bought his apartment from the owner? He didn't think it was possible for anyone to show so much unadulterated kindness to a person, let alone him. He stored the train of thought in the back of his mind, mentally promising to pursue it later.<p>

"Ah, sorry. I must of dozed off there for a second" Naruto said with a embarrassed grin, scratching the back of his head with his hand. "Anyway, so does this mean I have to pay you guys rent now?"

Minato and Kushina both shared a glance before they both started laughing, Kushina clutching her sides. Naruto looked between them in confusion, then in slight indignation at being laughed at. "Hey what's so funny?" he shouted.

Kushina eventually managed to gain control of her laughter, only letting out a occasional snicker. "Why would we ever charge you rent, you're out s-friend!" Kushina said as she caught herself from saying something she would regret. She looked over to Naruto and was glad to see he didn't seem to have noticed anything out of the ordinary. Instead, she saw a smile spreading across his face. It filled her joy to see him filled with so much happiness. They all turned and walked into the apartment together.

**AN: Wow, sorry guys, that took a lot longer then I had expected. It was just really hard to write the first 1000 words of this chapter, took me a few days to actually write. I'll try to get the next chapter out asap, but it will probably take a week or more. Anyway, I've placed below the links to the clothes that Minato and Kushina are wearing along with Naruto's outfit. Minato's and Kushina's were the same as when they were genin (IE: 10 years old, but they are still 8). Naruto's is basically the same as Minato's but when he was in the academy. **

**And, before I leave, I AM still looking for a beta. If you are interested at all and meet the specifications of any normal beta, drop me a line and maybe we can work something out. This story desperately needs a beta. Anyway, everyone R&R, it really helps and inspires me :D**

***MINOR SPOILER ALERT IF YOU AREN'T CAUGHT UP TO 498 IN THE MANGA***

**Minato: **wwwdotnaurtoversedotorg**/Naruto/498/15/ (next pic has a second view of what Minato is wearing**

**Kushina: ****wwwdotnaurtoversedotorg****/Naruto/498/16/ (Minato and Kushina, good second view of Minato's current clothes)**

**Naruto: ****wwwdotnaurtoversedotorg****/Naruto/498/13/ (top leftmost panel, same as what Minato is wearing but with orange for the side stripes)**


	7. Chapter 6

**AN: Thank you guys for all the reviews: xxAre-chanxx, CandyGirl999, kakashi-is-hot, BloodKitsune11, narutofan, CJ Snow, calypso tchaka, fanficreader71, CNGB, srkaddict, Phnxfry1. You guys are all awesome for reviewing :D. One more thing before I start the chapter, I want to remind you guys that every time you review, it inspires me to write a little more. If you like the story, let me know, or I will think no one likes it. If you have an idea, leave it in a review. People often judge a fics popularity by the number of reviews it gets, so if you review, more people will probably come and read it. I'm not holding this fic hostage for more reviews, but I'm asking everyone that likes the story to review, because it means a lot.**

**Anywho, onto the story.**

**ANN: This chapter is partially based off of Manga Chapter 538**

**Chapter 6**

Naruto shifted excitedly as he and his two new friends made their way to the academy. They had told him last night after the exchange with Chouseki that they would be attending the ninja academy with him once it started up today. Naruto was starting his third year at the academy, which meant, including the newly starting year, he only had four years left before he officially became a shinobi of Konohagakure. Minato had told him that he and Kushina were the same age and would probably end up in the same class as Naruto.

Much to Naruto's gratitude, Kushina and Minato had woke him up early to get ready for the day. Naruto's gratitude was attributed to the fact that he had a tendency to sleep in, and thusly ended up getting to the academy late most days. This was the first time Naruto could remember actually heading to the academy well-groomed, completely fed, and on time. _Perks to having roommates I guess_, Naruto mused internally.

It took them only a few minutes of walking before the academy came into sight. Children were everywhere, many accompanied by their parents, seeing as it was opening day and most wanted to see their children off. Naruto glanced around, taking in the sight with a slight depression in his mood.

Naruto felt an arm suddenly close around the back of his neck. He looked up in slight surprise to his left, where Kushina was smiling a foxy grin that reminded Naruto of his own. Seeing this, Naruto suddenly felt reassured. He could feel the message implied through her action. _Don't worry about them, you've got us_.

Naruto smiled confidently back at Kushina as they walked together into the building, ignoring everything else.

* * *

><p>Umino Iruka had a smile on his face as he walked towards the classroom. The nineteen-year old chūnin was starting his first year as an academy instructor. Iruka had never felt the yearning for constant combat or action that most ninja felt. Now, he certainly wasn't a slouch when it came to his ninja skills, but for as long as Iruka could remember since becoming a ninja, something about passing down the skills and tradition of being a ninja had always fascinated him. Iruka hadn't been a chūnin for long before he had submitted his application to become a instructor. A few months ago, he had been notified by the Hokage along with the other newly inducted instructors of their new employment.<p>

Iruka had since been preparing for the coming school year by gathering the required equipment for the curriculum. He would be starting off teaching a class of third-year students, which meant this would be the first year that they would practice practical ninja arts. The previous two years, the students were just taught simple math skills, some history, and some chakra theory. This would be the first year where most students would actually try to call on their chakra and start learning basic ninja skills.

Iruka suddenly realized that he had arrived at his classroom, having dazed off a bit. He slowly reached out and turned the knob, pushing forward and walking into a screaming room of eight-year olds.

Most of the children noticed his entrance and immediately quieted down, but there was still a good amount of students talking amongst themselves. Almost all the remaining students were silenced as his collection of books hit the table with a loud slam. Much to his annoyance, he noticed two children in the back were still talking amicably... and very loudly between each other. He suddenly realized he recognized one of the two children, it was none other than Uzumaki Naruto, the Kyuubi child. He felt his hand clench and unclench in anger as his thoughts shot back to his deceased parents and how that creature brought about their deaths. Surely this had to be some kind of sick joke! The Hokage knew about his parents, so why would he stick Iruka of all people with the demon brat?

Iruka noticed most of the children were looking at him in confusion, unsure why he looked angry. Iruka stopped himself, and he took a few deep breathes, attempting to calm himself. He looked back to where the demon brat was chatting with a red-haired girl and cleared his throat loudly, attempting to get their attention. Much to frustration, both seemed to be either ignoring him or just didn't notice. Iruka started to feel his anger returning full force at the disrespect these two children were showing.

"Shut up!" Iruka suddenly exploded in Naruto's and the girl's direction, furious at being ignored. This caused Naruto and the girl to stop talking and look in his direction. Both seemed embarrassed, seeing as they both reached up and scratched the back of their heads, something that didn't go unnoticed by Iruka. Now that he thought about it, he hadn't known that the Kyuubi brat actually had any friends...

Shaking himself from that train of thought, he cleared his throat again before speaking, "Hello class, my name is Umino Iruka, and I will be your teacher for the last four years here, at the academy. You can call me either Iruka-sensei or just sensei if you prefer. Now, most of you probably already know each other, but we are going to go around the room and everyone is going to introduce themselves, ok?" Most of the children seemed to nod in agreement. "Ok then, let's start with you, and work across the row and then each row after that", Iruka said as he gestured to a child with his black hair pulled back in a ponytail.

The child muttered something that Iruka thought sounded like "troublesome", and stood up. "My name is Nara Shikamaru". He sat back down and the person next to him got up and introduced himself as well. It continued more or less smoothly through the next 25 children in the class. Iruka was surprised that he had so many students from many different prestigious clans in the village. He remembered seeing, on top of Nara Shikamaru, Yamanaka Ino and Akimichi Chōji. _A second coming of the famous Ino-Shika-Chō trio? _Iruka silently mused. Other than that, Aburame Shino, Inzuka Kiba, and Hyūga Hinato were also in his class, all heirs to their clans as well. Of course, one couldn't forget about Uchiha Sasuke, the lone survivor of the Uchiha clan massacre. Iruka had heard he was an up and coming prodigy of his own right, and Iruka was curious to see how good he was. Most of the other children were from civilian families or from non-clan shinobi parents.

Finally, Iruka turned his attention to the last three children to introduce themselves, namely the Kyuubi brat and the two children that seemed to be his friends. Seeing it was his turn, a confident grin split Naruto's face. He brought his open palm down on the table with a resounding bang, shocking most of the children that hadn't been paying attention or started to doze off. Suddenly, all eyes in the room were on him.

If this bothered Naruto, he didn't show it at all, grin still plastered on his face. Instead of backing down, he stood up. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto, and don't any of you forget it, because I'm going to be Hokage someday, dattebayo!" Naruto yelled to the entire classroom. There was complete silence for a few seconds before almost the entire room burst out into laughter. Even Iruka was chucking at the absurd (to him) proclamation from the child. Several other children were throwing out comments like "not in a thousand years" or "as if a dobe like you could become Hokage" between fits of laughter.

When Iruka finally looked back up to Naruto, he saw that he was looking somewhat angrily at children in the room that were so easily laughing at his aforementioned goal. Iruka also saw, much to his surprise, that the two other children were both giving out their own glares to the children laughing at Naruto. The blond-haired one leaned over to Naruto and whispered something into his ear that Iruka couldn't pick out. The anger quickly vanished from Naruto's face as the words seemed to calm him down. He gave a slight nod to the blond-haired child and leaned back in his chair, instead of exploding at the classroom verbally, much to Iruka continued amazement.

Iruka turned his gaze to the blond-haired child sitting next to Naruto, taking in his appearance for the first time. Iruka's eyes widened marginally once he realized that he and Naruto could probably be siblings with the similarities between each other: blond hair, the same blue eyes, hell, they were even wearing almost the same jacket. Iruka of course dismissed the possibility, he would of known if the Kyuubi brat had had any siblings. He also felt that the child reminded him of someone, but Iruka couldn't quiet place who.

Looking over at the other child, a girl with long, red hair, he took in her appearance. She had a rounded face that reminded him a bit of a tomato for some reason. She had fair skin and incredible violet eyes. She was still glaring at the other children, and Iruka could almost feel the fire that seemed to be leaping in those very same violet eyes. He couldn't exactly place why, but she reminded him a bit of Naruto.

The blond-haired child finally decided to stand up. He picked himself up slowly before speaking, cutting through the remaining laughter, "My name is Minato". He paused for a second before continuing to Iruka's surprise. "You know, I read somewhere that the Yondiame Hokage said he wanted to be Hokage when he was in the academy too. He was a nobody back then, born from a clan-less shinobi and a civilian mother, both who died shortly after his birth, simply an orphan. They laughed at him back then, but he went on to become Hokage didn't he?" Minato's eyes darted across the crowd of children before finally resting on Iruka. "You all shouldn't be so fast to judge someone because of where they come from, their past, or even the way they act. Anyone can achieve anything if they try hard enough, the Yondiame did, why can't anyone?" Minato had said this entire last part looking directly at Iruka, even though it was addressed to the entire class. There was complete silence in the room for a few seconds, as everyone absorbed Minato's speech.

Iruka was understandably a little shaken by Minato's words. For Kami's sake, he had just been subtly scolded by a child about not being tolerant. Iruka was no fool, he realized that Naruto was the container and not the demon itself in human form, but still hated him for the demon he contained. Iruka realized that he wasn't exactly being fair to the child in this way. He of all people as a teacher should know not the judge someone before getting to know them. Shaking his head a bit, Iruka decided to come to a resolve. His initial plan had been to just ignore Naruto for as long as possible, but he decided now to at least treat him as a normal student. If he turned out to be as bad as the stories made him out to be, he could always go back to ignoring him.

Iruka's eyes suddenly widened as he realized why Minato was so familiar to him. He brought his head up and inspected Minato's face to confirm his suspicions. The Yondiame Hokage's full name had been Namikaze Minato. Iruka stared up at the blond-haired child with narrowed eyes, thoughts running wildly in his head. This Minato child had just come forth and spoken as if he intimately knew the Yondiame's history, stating things that Iruka hadn't even been aware of. On top of that, he bared a striking resemblance to the late Hokage himself, _and also Naruto, for that fact,_ Iruka noted with slight trepidation. Iruka could feel this as if it was a puzzle just waiting to be solved. He gave one last cursory glance at the boy before his final thought on the matter went through his head, _just who is this child?_

Iruka's silent game of Clue was interrupted as another, yet equally loud palm slapped down on the table, jolting him out of his musings. Looking up, he didn't feel surprised for some reason to see the red-haired girl giving a very mischievous, ear-splitting grin to the classroom

"My name is Kushina, and you all better all remember it, because you'll be hearing about all of us soon" she yelled while gesturing to the trio with the grin still spanning her face. "Especially this soon-to-be Hokage right here".

Iruka saw Naruto's eye widen at her statement before he quickly turned his head away from the rest of the classroom. Iruka thought he saw a tear start to trail down the side of Naruto's face, but wasn't able to be certain because of the distance between them. He shouldn't of been surprised, _this is probably the first time anyone actually acknowledged Naruto's goal and actually said he would achieve it, _Iruka silently guessed.

"Yeah right, I'm sure we will hear a lot about you and that dobe, tomato-face **(AN: for those that don't know, this was a childhood name that bullies called Kushina as a child, comparing her face to a tomato)**", a child spoke out from the classroom while rolling his eyes.

Many children gulped nervously as temperature of the room dropped ten degrees, an indescribable force suddenly radiating from red-head, who's eyes were suddenly hidden beneath her bangs. The indescribable force actually caused the child who had spoken out to fall to his knees in fear, unable to shake the sense of looming danger.

Iruka for his part was unable to keep his eyebrows from raising in surprise. He wasn't too effected by the killing intent being projected by the young girl, mostly because it was indirect and obviously subconscious. Still, for an eight year-old child to be able to display killing intent, especially if it was subconscious, was nothing short of amazing. Kushina finally decided to speak up. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch what you said, would you mind repeating that?" she asked in a mockingly sweet tone as she turned her body to face the child that had spoken out, eyes closed and mouth curved into a forcibly sweet smile.

The child in question looked up at her, fearing for his life before he stammered out a reply, "N-no! I-I d-did-d't say anything!". He watched in horror as she approached him, the false smile still plastered across her face. He closed his eyes, awaiting the end of his short life when he felt the soft pressure of someone placing their hand on his head. He opened his eyes in shock to see that Kushina was patting him softly on the head like a trained animal.

"Good, now, I hope no one else has anything else to say", she said looking out across the room. Defining silence was her reply, and a small smile crossed her face as she walked back to her seat and plumped herself down in the small chair. Naruto looked over to her in slight horror at the spectacle that just occurred, and she returned his look of horror with a smile of her own.

Naruto just turned away from her and looked down at his desk, absorbing the interaction which had just happened. _Ok, its official, women are __**scary!**_

* * *

><p>Iruka had herded them outside stating that he wanted to test to see their current combat skill levels through sparring. Naruto could feel himself getting excited at the prospect of being able to fight, seeing as it might help show people that he was serious about becoming Hokage when he kicked his opponents ass! Naruto's smile faltered a bit when the prospect of fighting one of his new friends crossed his mind. He had seen how fast Minato had been when he beat up the shopkeeper earlier, Naruto knew he wasn't even close to his level. He had also seen just how scary Kushina could get if provoked, and really didn't want to be on the receiving end of one of her punches.<p>

Naruto ended up tuning out most of Iruka's explanation about the Symbol of "Combat" and the Symbol of "Harmony" and tradition of shinobi spars. Before he knew it, the sparring had began. There were several spars between kids he didn't know, nothing special in any of them. The first mini-surprise of the day came when Iruka called Shikamaru and Chōji forth to spar, and the Shikamaru kid just forfeited out! _Talk about lazy_, Naruto thought silently to himself as he heard small chuckle from Minato's direction.

"Minato and Kiba, step forth", Iruka suddenly yelled out, bringing Naruto back to the real world. Naruto leaned over to Minato and whispered a quick "good luck" to him as he started to walking to the sparring circle. Minato flashed him a quick smile before turning back to the circle, smile gone from his face and replaced by a neutral stare. Kiba set down his dog before also walking into the mini-arena. He had a confident grin and cracked a few knuckles in preparation. Both raised their hands, index and middle finger extended upwards while their thumb was crossed over the ring finger. Iruka eyed both of them before bringing his hand down and jumping back to initiate the spar. Both shot forward at breakneck speeds, fists raised. Kiba's leg shot out, aiming for Minato's head, but Minato ducked and guided his own leg up to Kiba's now exposed back. It made solid contact and sent him skidding back to the edge of the ring. Kiba quickly picked himself back up and threw himself back at Minato.

Naruto frowned slightly as he watched his two classmates fight. He noticed Minato was moving much slower than he had been when he fought the shopkeeper. This confused Naruto, why wouldn't Minato show his true skill level? Naruto put the thought in the back of his mind, next to all the other questions he had for his new friends.

Turning back to the fight, he saw Minato block a right hook from Kiba with his right palm. Using his now solid grip on Kiba's arm, Minato twisted and flipped Kiba onto ground with a dull thud. Naruto heard Kiba groan a bit in pain. He noticed Minato reach down to Kiba and offer a hand. Kiba seemed to eye it for a second, before reaching out and allowing Minato to help him back to his feet. Both had grins splitting their faces.

The sound of slow clapping reached the two combatants ears, drawing their attention to Iruka, "That was very impressive Minato, you showed that you would keep calm under pressure and assault. You also showed incredible coordination and dexterity, however, your speed could be improved and you lack a style. Don't worry, these are things we can fix in the academy. I would say you are on your way to the top of the class young man". Iruka turned to Kiba next before continuing. "You also did good Kiba, expect whenever you failed to hit Minato, you grew angrier and angrier, which led to your form and attacks becoming sloppy and even easier to block or avoid. Your speed was impressive for an academy student though, good job".

Both boys seemed to glow at the praise and critique. Both turned to each other, raising the previous hand gesture of the first two fingers extended before they reached out and linked them, crossing them over each other in the Symbol of "Harmony", both with huge grins on their faces.

"You're pretty good, I'll have to fight you again some time for real and beat you" Kiba said to Minato, who replied with a nod and continued smile. Both walked off to their respective areas.

"Next up, Kushina and Inafune Keiji" Iruka said while looking at his clipboard. Naruto looked over to see the child that had called Kushina tomato-face gulping rather audibly. He also heard a evil snicker to his left, and turned to see Kushina cracking her knuckles, fire in her eyes.

"This is going to be fun".

* * *

><p>Naruto almost felt sorry for Meiji, he had been sent to the hospital for the injuries he had sustained from Kushina's beating. A new nickname for her was already starting to circulate among the children, Akai Chishio no Habanero (Red Hot-Blooded Habanero), both for her hair and her incredible temper. For some reason which Naruto was unable to discern, this amused Minato greatly, but when Naruto asked, he just shrugged it off.<p>

"Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke, you guys are up", Iruka called out. Cheering suddenly erupted from the female half of for crowd, girls fawning over Sasuke for his attention. A thought suddenly came to Naruto. _This is that popular kid, I bet if I beat him, I'll become popular because I'm better than him!_

"Alright, let's do this!" Naruto yelled as he walked forward. He failed to notice among the mob cheering for Sasuke, other than his two new friends, there was one small girl rooting for him.

"G-good luck Naru-", Hinata was cut off as the mob's cheers intensified once Sasuke stepped into the ring.

"Alright, Uzumaki Naruto vs. Uchiha Sasuke-"

"Let's rock loser", Naruto suddenly yelled out, preparing to charge. Iruka felt his eye twitch a bit.

"Naruto, you need to make the symbol for combat before you spar, its common protocol!" Iruka told Naruto in slight exasperation.

"Who cares about that? Lemme beat this loser up already! This is the day I become popular!" Naruto yelled back in response.

Naruto heard Sasuke snort at his claim. "So stupid... fine, I'll take you down in one-"

Iruka had had enough. "Stop! Both of you". Iruka went on to explain how using the symbol of "Combat" and "Harmony" was a tradition in shinobi spars, but Naruto just tuned him out, not really caring about what he had to say. Iruka seemed to noticed his inattention, as he yelled, "Are you even listening to me Naruto! This is the second time I've told you this!"

"Yeah yeah yeah..." Naruto trailed off, truthfully lying out his ass. Naruto quickly formed the symbol of "Combat" as did Sasuke, before a "begin!" rang out over ring. Naruto rushed forward, as did Sasuke, fist aiming for his gut. Before Naruto knew what happened, Naruto felt a pressure on his stomach, throwing him off balance and backwards onto his back. Suddenly, Sasuke was crouched over Naruto. Naruto saw a fist quickly closing the distance between where it was and his face, but it stopped right before it reached it. Cheering erupted from the crowd, praising Sasuke for his victory.

Sasuke sneered and pushed himself off Naruto's form and started walking away. Iruka announced the victor to be Sasuke and told them to make the symbol of "Harmony", but Naruto didn't hear him, his eyes and attention trained on Sasuke. Naruto had looked into his eyes when he was crouched over him, it had been like Sasuke was looking straight past him. "I'm not even on your radar am I you butthead", Naruto yelled at Sasuke's retreating form. "No, you're not just a butthead, you're a dribbling dried up piece of crap!""

Naruto felt a hard slap to the back of his head. He turned to look at Iruka fuming at him. "Shinobi spars are sacred traditions, now make the symbol of "Harmony" damn it!". Naruto grumbled as he stood up and started walking in Sasuke's direction. He reached up, making a very loose half-ram hand sign, Sasuke doing the same. Just as they were about to link, both of their hands slipped past each other's and grasped the front of the opposite's jacket.

Anger bled onto Sasuke's face. "You wanna fight dropout?" Sasuke growled while Naruto gave him an equally intimidating growl of his own in response. Both felt a pair of strong hands separate them as Iruka intervened. The crowd started booing Naruto, and Naruto felt like he had had enough. He jumped over the fence surrounding the academy and gave one last glance back at Sasuke before shooting off in the opposite direction.

* * *

><p>Kushina bit her lip nervously as she watched Naruto run away from the academy. She looked pleadingly over to Minato, and he gave a quick nod to signal his understanding. Both of them shot off in the direction that Naruto had run.<p>

It took them only five minutes to catch up with him. They ended up following him across the rooftops. "Come on Naruto, stop so we can talk to you!" Minato yelled to him as they continued to pursue him. When Naruto refused to respond, Minato sprinted forward with a quick burst of speed and grabbed the back of Naruto's shirt with his left hand while hooking his left leg around Naruto's right. The result was the both of them tumbling to the ground rather unceremoniously.

"Hey, what the hell was that for! Damn you Minato", Naruto yelled to Minato as he picked himself back up off the ground, limping slightly.

Minato shrugged, picking himself off the ground before replying, "Well, I had to make you stop running, didn't I?". As he finished his sentence, Kushina finally caught up with them. Naruto eyed both of them wearily.

"Look, forget about all those people, they're idiots and don't know anything", Kushina spoke to Naruto. He continued to eye both of them for a few more moments. An unusually serious expression on his face suddenly appeared on his face.

"I haven't ever told anyone why I want to become Hokage", Naruto started. "I know you guys aren't stupid, you've noticed how people treat me, how they hate or ignore me, treat me like I'm trash. If I become the Hokage... the strongest ninja in the village, there would be no way people would treat me that way. If I become Hokage, people would have to respect me and treat me nicely! They would treat me like I'm someone. Someone important". Naruto had turned away from them while he talked, staring at the civilians down on the street. "But it's not just that. Up until recently, it was just that, being recognized. But over the past few days, I realized there is another reason why I need to become Hokage. I've never experienced friendship before, so now I know just how precious it is. I need to be strong in order to protect it, and protect those that give it. You guys, even if I've only known you guys for a few days, are precious to me. You're... my precious people, I guess you would say". Naruto's grip on the handrail he was leaning on tightened. "But you aren't all. I've realized that, even if these people hate me, I don't hate them, I can't. They are normal people too, just like me. They have friendships and precious people too. Being the Hokage would mean I would protect the village too, not just be the strongest ninja. It's something I have to do, because for whatever reason, I love the village".

There was defining silence for a few moments. Naruto internally cringed at his stupidity in a small moment of weakness. They were probably internally laughing at his reason for wanting to become Hokage. He turned around and was greeted by the sight of both of them staring at him with conflicting emotions, which confused Naruto a bit. He spotted happiness, anger, and... that look parents gave their children, was it pride? To say Naruto was confused was an understatement, if there had been any one reaction he expected, it had not been this. He suddenly felt Kushina envelope him in a bone-crushing hug, which Naruto was starting to get used to, but that didn't mean they hurt any less. Naruto noticed Minato place his hand on Naruto's shoulder, the emotion Naruto thought was pride running rampant through his features.

"Well, I think we need make you a Hokage as soon as possible then".

* * *

><p>Ishidzukuri Teichi was walking down the street, running a simple D-rank mission by running an errand for an elderly lady. To the average passerby, Teichi was nothing more than a sub-average genin, probably stuck forever at the rank due to the lack of skill. In reality, Teichi was anything but that. He had been in Konoha for a little over eight years now as a deep Iwagakure spy. It was part of a major operation Iwagakure had started after the death of the Yondiame Hokage to reaffirm its position as a regional power after its lose in the Third Shinobi War. It involved strengthening the numbers and quality of Iwagakure ninja, which truthfully was very lacking after the war, but more importantly, flesh out Iwagakure's spy network, which was demolished during the war.<p>

Teichi was a Tokubetsu Jōnin specializing in infiltration. He used a special ninjustu that allowed him to constantly appear at the same young age, despite him actually being around thirty-five. It was semi-permanent, impossible to detect and only dispelled under his death or manual cancellation of the justu. He was one of a few successful infiltrations of Konohagakure, and his simple duty was to gain knowledge of upcoming genin and relay it back to his handler. A relatively simple and low risk job. Teichi often found himself bored, Konoha was far more boring than Iwa.

So, when Teichi spotted three children racing across the rooftops, his interest was understandably piqued. He followed them silently, keeping himself hidden as they raced down streets and up to the roofs. He eventually saw one of the three child bring the lead one down to the ground rather painfully. He wasn't close enough to catch the entire conversation, but he did pick up a few words, more specifically a name that made his blood run cold.

"...Minato!". Teichi stilled. Minato... Namikaze Minato, the bane of Iwagakure during the last war. One of the few ninjas ever to have a Flee on Sight status given. Teichi had been at the Battle of Kanabi Bridge, one of the few survivors, he had even caught a glance at the demon that slaughtered his platoon. He inspected the child that was called Minato more closely. White jacket, blond hair in a spiky style, blue eyes. Hell, the other blond to looked just like him too.

Teichi shook his head, these kids must of been about eight, so they were born around the time the Yondiame died. He had never heard about the Yondiame having kids but... _This is possibly big, I need to go talk to my handler._ Teichi jumped off, thoughts running wild, completely unnoticed by the three children.

**AN: I have returned! Sorry about the long time I took to update, a little bit over a week, but I gave you guys a over 5K chapter in return, so I think it worked out. I thought this chapter turned out pretty well, but there were a few spots I edited a lot (yes I actually edited it before posting this time). Let me know which parts you guys liked and which parts need to be fixed. I'm taking a slight vacation, so next update may take up to a month, but probably won't take that long. Anyway, whoever tells me what Ishidzukuri Teichi's name means gets an imaginary cookie, it means something actually (I think with my limited understanding of Japanese).**

**Anyway, I'm making this too long. _PLEASE_ read and review, its the driving force for me to continue writing, I actually got less reviews last chapter then the chapter before, it was depressing :(. If there is a reason why you didn't review, let me know whats wrong with the fic, please. Anyway, I'm off, see you guys next time.**

**EDIT AN: Going through the story another time, I realized when I said that Minato and Kushina where giving Naruto looks of conflicting emotions, one which was anger, it could be misinterpreted that they were angry with him. In reality, they are angry at the village for treating their sun as such a pariah, even though he wants to protect them :) **


End file.
